What do you know about Alboran cetaceans and marine turtles ?

31 July 2014 | News story

The Alboran Sea is one of the richest biodiversity points in the Mediterranean Sea, but at the same time, it is one of the busiest shipping routes. The IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation IUCN has just published 9 fact sheets of cetacean and 5 of marine turtles that frequent the waters of the Alboran Sea. These fact sheets aim at describing the current knowledge about these species in the Alboran Sea and their fragile status of conservation.

The Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation IUCN has recently released a series of fact sheets and information packs pertain¬ing to 9 cetaceans and 5 sea turtles in an attempt to inform the global community of these phenomenal creatures and also the threats they face.

The publications are based on years of data collection and sightings and describe the geo¬graphical distributions of the different species along with the major threats present and the conservation measures that have been implemented. The most serious threats come in the form of acoustic disturbances from marine traffic, ingestion of plastics & other waste and chemical pollution which all have major impacts on the safety and population security of the marine fauna.
The publications provide detailed information on a selection of the marine fauna found in the area, including six species that are listed as either ‘endangered’ or ‘critically endangered’, the high¬est risk categories:

Following the IUCN Red List, almost all of these species are in danger of extinction.
More precisely, six species are listed as either ‘endangered’ or ‘critically endangered’, the high¬est risk categories.

“The Alboran Sea is a critical transit connection between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Most of these species are characterized by migratory and travel long distances, especially turtles, hence the good condition of the waters of the Alboran Sea and good regulation of human activities are critical to their survival” said Andrés Alcantara, coordina¬tor of IUCN-Med POCTEFEX-Alboran project.
The information contained in these records have been collected jointly by the S.L. ALNILAM Research and Conservation experts from the Biological station of Doñana (Spain), CIRCE (Conservation, Information and Research on Cetaceans), and the Spanish Herpetological Association.